


Fit to be tied

by Deepdarkwaters



Series: Bespoke [11]
Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Bondage, Couch Cuddles, Fluff, M/M, Voyeurism, Young Harry, young Merlin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-24
Updated: 2016-06-18
Packaged: 2018-06-10 12:54:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6957334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deepdarkwaters/pseuds/Deepdarkwaters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's always been a special talent of Harry's to be able to look entirely ridiculous while still being the most mesmerising person in the room. Harry at twenty-one walked around as though the world belonged to him and everybody he met in it was there on his gracious invitation; bad habits learned throughout a childhood of privilege that raised him to believe he was born better and so didn't actually need to <i>be</i> better. Somehow along the way he picked up a sense of humour about it all, a self-deprecating sort of worldview that was so at odds with his caricature aristo parents that Merlin told him once, lying in Harry's bed after some ghastly society ball while Harry followed detailed instructions to fuck himself on his fingers, <i>you're not a Hart, you're a changeling. They'll want you back someday</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [smaychel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smaychel/gifts).



When Eggsy asks how they got started in all this – _all this kinky shit_ he calls it, still not quite comfortable enough with it to talk about it any way but casually – it seems easier just to show him.

Of course the video footage from 1983 isn't the best, not to someone who didn't even exist until (Jesus Christ) the '90s and can barely remember life before digital high definition. Eggsy squints at the screen, makes some disappointed grumbling noises at the quality even though Merlin's restored all his favourite old videos as much as possible as his technology caught up with his needs, then goes still at once when he sees Harry.

"Holy _fuck_." He squirms a bit in Merlin's lap. He's far too big to be there, he's heavy – solid show-off muscle where Harry is lean and built for speed – and Merlin slides a warning hand down his thigh until he settles. "Sorry but look at his hair, it's like a foot tall!"

It's always been a special talent of Harry's to be able to look entirely ridiculous while still being the most mesmerising person in the room. Harry at twenty-one walked around as though the world belonged to him and everybody he met in it was there on his gracious invitation; bad habits learned throughout a childhood of privilege that raised him to believe he was born better and so didn't actually need to _be_ better. Somehow along the way he picked up a sense of humour about it all, a self-deprecating sort of worldview that was so at odds with his caricature aristo parents that Merlin told him once, lying in Harry's bed after some ghastly society ball while Harry followed detailed instructions to fuck himself on his fingers, _you're not a Hart, you're a changeling. They'll want you back someday_.

On the screen Harry flashes a fleeting grin at the cameraman documenting the lesson, and Merlin watching it remembers that precise moment from the other side as well: too many teeth on show, and the way Galahad's entire face seemed to collapse into crinkles when he smiled. The deep dimples at the sides of his mouth. Merlin, before he was Merlin, had woken up in the middle of the night from a dream about those dimples that left him incomprehensibly hard in his pyjamas considering it hadn't even been rude. Even now, decades later, every time Harry smiles Merlin finds himself wanting to reach for his face the way he did in his dream at nineteen, gently press the pads of his thumbs in the hollows and angle his face up for a kiss.

" _Is that you_?" Eggsy asks, almost shrill in his surprise. Merlin watches himself on the screen and barely recognises the boy there: half a head taller than everyone else but skinny, not yet introduced to the martial arts and long-distance running he'd find an affinity for somewhere along the line in agent training. "You're like a pair of cheekbones in a boiler suit, holy fuck! I mean," Eggsy adds hastily, "not like you ain't still, you know, a good eight, borderline nine now."

"Have you finished?"

"For now," Eggsy says, plastering an innocent look on his face before he starts rubbing his cheek gently against Merlin's jumper and turns his attention back to the screen, to Harry introducing himself to the remaining six candidates. "You think he _ever_ had an ugly phase in his life? I broke mirrors with my fucking ugly face when I was thirteen, shoulda worn a bag on it to spare people having to claw their eyes out. Bet he's always been perfect."

Five minutes is Merlin's limit for having Eggsy sit on him, so he tips the lad off and lets him tuck himself under Merlin's arm instead, fingers drawing idle little patterns in the front of his jumper while they watch the video: Harry, younger by several years than some of the candidates, is sitting on the desk at the front of the room like a cool supply teacher, swinging his legs a bit so the heels of his shoes tap against the wood. He looks like the least threatening person in the world, all huge Bambi eyes and a smile that fades in and out like a pulse as he's listening to everyone say their names and a bit about themselves. Even at the time Merlin was pretty sure that was a ruse; he didn't, couldn't, know yet how all Harry's softness hid a core of solid steel, at least regarding his work.

Eggsy's hand creeps under the bottom hem of Merlin's jumper, gently stroking his belly through his shirt.

1983 Harry is taking things from a cardboard box and laying them on the desk: cable ties, rope, handcuffs. "There's often a fairly simple trick to escaping when you're tied up," he's saying, absently wrapping the end of the rope around his fist as he talks. "I won't tell you, I'll see if I can show you. Volunteers? You, Greek god"—he points his wrapped hand at a tall blond guy with muscles on his muscles whose name Merlin can no longer remember, then lets the end of the rope drop and dangle an inch or two from the floor—"take this. Tie me to my chair."

Eggsy's stroking fingers slow at that. He glances up at Merlin, and Merlin pretends not to notice, then turns his attention back to the television where the blond guy is wrapping the rope around and around Harry's arms and body to bind him to the back of the chair he takes in front of the desk.

"Done?" Harry checks, then as soon as he gets a nod suddenly the rope seems to be slacker than it was a second ago, loose enough for him to wriggle the fingers of both hands between the passes of the rope and unfasten the knot. He looks far too pleased with himself once he's free. It's an expression Merlin knows as well as his own reflection; it hasn't changed a scrap in three decades. "Anybody see what I did there?"

"Held your breath," young Merlin says, and Harry beams at him.

"I haven't been doing this job very long – unbelievable, I know – but nine times out of ten I've found that criminal masterminds are far too busy being clever to bother making sure their underlings have more than a single brain cell to share between them. If you find yourself in a position where you can't escape and you're going to be tied up, make yourself as large as possible. Take the biggest breath you can and hold it, push out your tummy, tense all your muscles. It won't give you much, but you ought to be able to work with it. Or there are ways to hold yourself that, hopefully, they'll be too stupid to recognise as deliberate. Will you be my next volunteer?"

Eggsy nudges Merlin gently in the ribs with his elbow. "Chosen one."

"Shush."

"See, your wrists are wider side to side than they are front to back. If they're tying your hands, cross your wrists over so they're as wide as possible, then you ought to be able to turn in the ropes and..." His voice fades off as nineteen year old Merlin takes his hands, rearranges them so the insides of his wrists are pressed tightly together, and wraps the rope around.

"What if they're not idiots, sir?" he asks politely as he ties the knot.

"Shiiit," Eggsy says in a tone of disbelieving delight. "Look at you, cocky little rebel talking back to teacher."

On screen, Harry – who looks like he could be in a boy band, all soft pale skin and perfect hair – tilts his head to the side and stares at Merlin, considering. Then he clasps his bound hands and quick as a gunshot he flings his arms over Merlin's head so the rope's nudged up against the back of his neck, and does some kind of clever trick with his leg that sweeps Merlin's feet out from under him and knocks him to the floor with Harry astride his waist and his head at an angle that looks horrible. He doesn't remember it feeling much better at the time either.

"You break their necks," Harry says mildly. "Quite easy to do, once you know how, but that's not what I've been asked to show you."

Eggsy's stopped moving altogether, gazing avidly at the screen with his pretty mouth hanging slightly open. Understandable, really. Harry in motion is unreal, like something drawn and animated. Real people just don't move the way Harry does. It feels like it should be an anatomical impossibility, and yet Merlin's got three decades' worth of videos proving otherwise.

"Love at first sight, hey," Eggsy says faintly, not looking away from the screen as Harry's helping Merlin to his feet and Merlin's untying the ropes, giving each other amused sideways glances the whole time.

"Not quite," Merlin says, affecting nonchalance because he suspects it'll wind Eggsy up not to be allowed the full details of the story. "But it's possible I feel a bit of a twinge when he asks me bind him up with cable ties in a minute."

"That on the video?"

"Yes."

" _Yes_ ," Eggsy repeats, nonsensical breathless triumph, and his fingers slide down Merlin's front again to play with the buttons fastening his trousers while Harry and Merlin on the screen, twenty-one and nineteen and amused and beautiful, stare at each other for just a moment longer than is really necessary.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **from:** Eggsy  <gawain@kingsman.org>  
>  **to:** Merlin  <merlin@kingsman.org>  
>  **subject:** hey merlin
> 
> it was agent gawain in the hallway with the rope ;)
> 
> IMG_9801.MOV

**from:** Eggsy  <gawain@kingsman.org>  
**to:** Merlin  <merlin@kingsman.org>  
**subject:** hey merlin

it was agent gawain in the hallway with the rope ;)

IMG_9801.MOV

* * *

**from:** Eggsy  <gawain@kingsman.org>  
**to:** Merlin  <merlin@kingsman.org>  
**subject:** shit sorry

prob shouldnt have sent this off work email, SORRY MERLIN. harry said dont stress bc youre always watching him like get fisted and stuff off your work monitor but still. you got a porno gmail or something i can send to?? if you get 9000000 photos of your husbands dick off unwinningatlife@gmail.com thats me :P

harry says can you pick up 2 pints of semi skimmed on the way home please and thank you

* * *

It's almost a good thing that Bedivere's mission goes a bit tits up shortly after: not for poor Bedivere, trying to hurry a few football teams' worth of kidnapped people out of a building that shouldn't be on fire but somehow is, but at least it takes Merlin's mind off the video file lurking like a demon in his inbox. He almost wears a path in the carpet pacing up and down between the handlers' stations, watching the action unfold on the big screen at the front of the room: pulling strings all around to find a better building plan and a new route out, getting Lancelot and her pilot on standby in Morocco ready to hop over the Strait and help if necessary, arguing as politely as he can bear to with the local police commissioner who doesn't like not being told every detail of why a foreign secret agent is even there.

"Clear," Bedivere finally says, managing somehow to stay as graceful as ever as he's hurtling out through a smashed ground floor window, grubby with soot, slightly singed, with an unconscious man flung over his shoulder and a woman with a bleeding nose clinging to his arm. "Last two. Ringleaders in the skip at the back ready for pickup. What's the damage, do I need to obliviate anyone?"

Obliviate. Fucking Eggsy, child of the noughties, and his stupid Harry Potter spell casting when he's practicing new ways to knock people out in the gym. Half the others say it now without even thinking: obliviate, stupefy, levi-OH-sa when they shove people out of windows. The boy has the strangest ability to burrow his way under people's skin like an invisible tick, undetectable until he's already settled there and then almost impossible to rip out – like now. Huge green eyes and a carved-marble jaw stuck like a screensaver on Merlin's brain. A far too familiar teasing grin that could have been learned from Harry the same way he learned to comb his hair and shape his vowels.

"No," he tells Bedivere. "Avoid that jobsworth with the police, go and get some rest. Good work."

He finds the nearest empty station, collapses into the chair, logs on remotely to his own computer to register the mission as complete and make some notes ready for Bedivere's debriefing tomorrow. A cup of tea appears by his mouse mat after a few minutes and he glances up, already knowing from the precisely perfect shade of the tea that it's going to be Harry's secretary, who was temporarily reassigned as dogsbody for the handlers while Harry was out of action and still lurks around the department when he's at a loose end.

"Dylan."

"Merlin."

 _Don't you have a home to go to_ is on the tip of his tongue, but he bites it back before it squirms its way out. Not the most sensitive question to ask since V-Day. "How many hours have you been working today?"

"Fourteen." He squints, pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose, gazes off into the distance the way he does when he's thinking hard. "And a half, but I was doing Buzzfeed quizzes so I won't clock it. You?"

"Fifteen. Go to sleep. Galahad's in at six tomorrow."

"I'll have his office lit and his coffee ready for seven, then," Dylan says, perfectly straight-faced except for the tiniest sideways glimmer of a smirk in his eyes. "He phoned while you were with Bedivere and asked if you've read your email, I told him you were tied up but I'd pass on the message. So there it is. Goodnight, sir."

 _Tied up_. God.

"Goodnight," he responds, far too professional to sound anything but smooth and calm even when his nerves feel shredded raw, then logs off the computer and takes his perfect tea back to his private office to download the video onto his tablet so he can watch it on the train back to the shop.

It starts wth Eggsy, his perfect, pretty mouth half-open in concentration as he turns on the camera hidden in one of Harry's picture frames; Merlin makes a mental note to get into his phone and hook him up to start recording remotely if this is going to become a habit. Eggsy winks, slow and smirking – he's still wearing his glasses; good boy – and steps back almost as far as the front door, giving Merlin a wider view of him from head to knees. His suit is spotless, not a crease on it; it's his light grey three piece, the one he says is too posh to wear, with a darker tie and one of Harry's ostentatious grey paisley pocket squares. Merlin's never seen the suit on him before and, strangely breathless on the train, can't help thinking he's chosen a hell of a moment to show it off.

"Looking good, Eggsy," he says, keeping his voice low, fearing it might wobble if he speaks normally. Of course Eggsy doesn't reply, all of this happened hours ago, but Merlin can see so clearly in his mind how the boy would react if all this were happening live: he'd look startled for a moment, then delighted, tipping his chin up that way he does when he's feeling especially pleased with himself. So much of him as Gawain is copied, consciously or not, from Harry. This is one of the things that's all him – although once or twice recently Merlin's noticed Harry doing it too. The two of them are like cars crashing, the other's paint scratching off onto their own body.

On screen Eggsy reaches just out of shot, and when he moves his hand slowly back into view there's the slack length of a soft rope wound between his fingers, presumably draped around the newel post at the bottom of the stairs. "So, Merlin," he says casually to the camera, "I been practicing them knots you showed me. I know I ain't up to all that fancy shit yet, but baby steps, right?" Something about his face softens then, and Merlin wonders what he's thinking. About Harry, obviously – as if he ever thinks about anything else these days now he knows it's allowed – and probably horrendously twee, one of those sweet Hollywood romcom things he occasionally tries to suppress as though he thinks Merlin might not like to hear it. Another mental note: tell Eggsy to always, always speak his mind. That saccharine bullshit never did it for Merlin, giving or receiving, but watching the way Harry reacts to it – the giddy shine in his eyes, the way he flushes so beautifully, every indent of his dimpled smiles and bitten lips – is fascinating, gorgeous, immense, almost frightening in its intensity. If there existed a way to dissect it and inspect every tiny piece of it under a microscope then Merlin would. Since he can't, he'll settle for this ravenous voyeurism intead.

He hears a text tone, almost checks his own phone before he realises it's coming from his tablet speaker. Eggsy grins at the message, then brings the phone screen close to the camera so Merlin can see the text speech bubble under the contact name 'Harry Hart Throb'.

_Darling – business trip went beautifully. New umbrella design quite the hit: at least sixteen people bought it. In the cab now so I shall see you soon, although not soon enough._

_Still outraged that you've never seen Steel Magnolias, you foetus. Quiet night in?_

"Definitely gonna be a quiet night," Eggsy says, face right up close to the camera again when he moves the phone so Merlin can see every fleck of evening stubble and the slick of saliva on his licked bottom lip. "He ain't gonna be able to make a sound, Merlin, fuck, I'm gonna shove my cock so far down your husband's neck he won't speak for days."

Merlin realises he's tracing the undulating wave of Eggsy's upper lip with his fingertip and snatches his hand away as though the screen's burned his skin, feeling strangely embarrassed even though he's alone.

"Or," Eggsy continues, drawing the word out long, soft and teasing, "what if I gag him with his own tie? Just have his arse right here on the stairs so he gets carpet burn on his knees and he can't even say stop cos he's choking on this bit of posh expensive silk. You think he'd like that?" He pauses then, tilts his head down in a way that makes his eyes look Disney-huge on the screen, and says softly, "Would _you_ like that? You wanna see me fucking ruin your bloke, yeah? Make him cry? Make him taste it on his gag when it all soaks in."

He steps back then, looking around at some sound and swiping his hand over his flushed face as though he'll be able to smear away the colour in his cheeks. Merlin finds himself doing the same, the prickle of stubble and the heat in his face like sunburn radiating out against his palm and fingers, then stills when Eggsy looks back at the camera, at _him_ , and points to the door.

"Car's just pulled up. Enjoy."

There's this marvellous change that comes over Harry every time he steps through the front door, as if there's some kind of magical force field there morphing him from Harry the fake tailor, the killer, the preening peacock who saunters around the world as though he owns it, to the Harry he knows better than he knows himself: Harry the lazy sloucher, the junk food lover, Harry the sentimental idiot who still strokes his dead dog to say hello every time he comes home – sometimes kisses the bloody thing, then has the temerity to look offended when Merlin makes him wash his face before being touched by his dead dog mouth.

This time Harry only gets in a fraction of a second of slouching before he's yardstick-straight again, spinning around under the shove of Eggsy's hands until he's pressed up against the closing door, making it slam.

Eggsy's voice is so clear through the speakers that he could be sitting opposite Merlin in the train carriage – but he's there in Harry's hallway, impeccable in his smartest bespoke suit, curling his fingers around Harry's wrists and pressing both of his palms flat against the door on either side of his head. "No words. Nod yes or shake no, you got it?" Harry nods, then breathes a shaky sigh out when Eggsy presses a gentle little kiss just above his collar at the nape of his neck. "If you're tired or you just don't wanna then you tell me and we can order kebabs in and watch your shitty film. You want me to stop?"

Harry shakes his head, of course.

Merlin flicks open one of the buttons on his shirt, reaching in to find the pendant he wears on a chain around his neck instead of a wedding ring and pressing the tiny button with his thumbnail until he can feel the gadget pulsing rapidly in time with Harry's heartbeat, the signal sent there from the implant he placed himself in Harry's wrist. Often he leaves it there where it hangs, beating a drumroll against his chest until he imagines his own heartbeat speeding up and falling in time with it. Sometimes, like now, it's not enough. He draws the chain over his head and tugs at the pendant so it pulls the chain right through the open place on his shirt, enclosing the whole thing in his fist where it thuds away like a trapped insect. Whatever the two of them are doing now in real time, it's still making Harry's heart go wild enough to match what's happening in the video.

On screen Eggsy's murmuring, "Good," against the curve of Harry's ear and tugging at his wrists again so he can slide Harry's jacket off his shoulders, unknot his tie, take that and his shirt off him as well. Harry's docile, barely breathing, forehead resting against the door where Eggsy put him. He lifts his feet one at a time so Eggsy can take off his shoes and socks, then, impossibly, his heartbeat in Merlin's palm seems to stutter a little faster still when Eggsy unbuttons his trousers, not even having to look, and drags them and Harry's underwear down his long legs and off his feet.

"That's better," Eggsy whispers between dotting kisses to Harry's shoulders and the top ridges of his vertebrae. "That's how me and Merlin like seeing you."

 _Is he watching_ Harry signs, and Eggsy sounds for a moment like he's trying to stifle laughter. He glances over at the picture frame camera and winks again, jerking his head at Harry as if to say _look at him, walking himself right into it_.

"What, you think that don't count as talking as well just cos it ain't your voice? Harry, love, you gotta listen to me and Merlin when we ask you to do things." He reaches for the rope, slithering the long length of it free from the newel post and starting to wrap it around Harry's wrists beind his back; he's careful to do it the way Merlin showed him, seeming hyper-aware of Harry's escape tricks after seeing the old video. Against the door, Harry's making the softest whining noise on every other exhale, fighting beautifully to stay silent as he was told to, even though his natural instinct has always been to beg and promise and yell the house down. "Course he's watching," Eggsy says casually as he's tying the knot, then he pulls insistently on Harry's shoulder to turn him around and clicks his fingers, sharp in the silence of the house, as he points to the floor. Harry drops at once, all sinuous naked grace even with his hands bound behind him, and Eggsy laughs, soft and marvelling in his throat, as he's stroking his fingers through the cropped hair at the back of Harry's head. "Merlin, fuck, ain't you trained him well? Just down like a fucking anchor, don't even need to tell him in words."

The train stops and Merlin pauses the video so he can hit the button that opens the door without missing a single second. His legs feel weak and wobbly, as though they might not support him as far as the shop floor, but of course they do; he's dealt with much more stressful things than Harry's adoring eyes and Eggsy Unwin's fucking beautiful dirty mouth and stayed standing. He gets into the driver's seat of his cab and sets it to drive itself home, sets the windows to full tint so he doesn't get stopped by some gobsmacked police officer for driving while watching Netflix or whatever it might look like from the outside, and taps the play button again.

If he could make himself wait he'd bring up both of their glasses feeds and wind back through the footage to this moment, get three different views of it: the camera trained on the two of them in the hall, Eggsy letting Harry's hair go so he can unfasten his trousers, Harry kneeling there so gorgeously quiet and still with his mouth hanging open, gazing hungrily at Eggsy's hands as they slip his fly buttons through the holes one by one. He doesn't, partly because he's too impatient and it's only five minutes to the house, partly because this is Eggsy's first gift to him and something feels strangely momentous, almost an odd sort of sacred. It seems important to watch it exactly as it was given to him.

So he watches from farther away than he's used to: no up close view of Eggsy's thick cock disappearing into Harry's mouth this time, but a spectacular panorama of Harry, naked on his knees with his hands bound tightly behind his bare back, and Eggsy, fully dressed in the most magnificent of suits with just the open fly of his trousers marring the perfection of the tailoring. Eggsy's fingers slide back through Harry's hair as he feeds him his cock, drawing him closer and pushing in relentlessly until Merlin can see the bulge of it in Harry's throat – sees the exact moment Harry goes from being able to breathe to not. He knows after thirty-some years what to look for, the tell-tale stutter of Harry's blinking eyelashes. The accelerating _ba-bum, ba-bum_ pulse of the heartbeat gadget still clasped in his sweating hand. He wonders if they're in bed now, fucking so hard that it's bouncing the headboard against the wall.

"Hey," Eggsy says, pulling out and letting Harry breathe. There's a quick flash of movement, the sharp crack of Eggsy's fingers smartly striking Harry's flushed cheek to get his attention. "Eyes up here, you get me? I don't wanna see them closing. You're gonna watch me fuck your face then the first thing you're gonna say when I'm done is thank you Merlin for showing me them videos of you learning you like getting tied up and fucking used."

"Eggsy, Jesus Christ," Merlin mutters, pressing Harry's thrumming heartbeat against his lips and watching him nod reverently on the screen, watching him open his mouth unbidden for Eggsy to slide wetly back inside him.

Of course Eggsy comes far too quickly for Merlin's liking – he's got the talk down, still figuring out the stamina – but he does it beautifully, tugging hard at Harry's hair and buried to the hilt in his mouth so the only evidence it's happening at all is Eggsy's choked cry and the desperate way Harry swallows around him. As promised, Harry's voice when he finally speaks is hoarse and sounds painful, though Merlin knows he'll be recovered well enough in the morning. He always is.

"Merlin," he says, throaty and rough, "thank you for showing Eggsy those videos."

"You're perfect," Eggsy says suddenly, fumbling and frantic as he sinks – almost collapses – to his knees and starts putting his hands and his mouth all over Harry, desperate kisses landing on his mouth and cheeks, fingers stroking and soothing the bits of hair he's just been yanking on. "Harry, fucking hell, are you even fucking real?"

"You," Harry starts, losing the words in Eggsy's mouth somewhere in the middle of a frenzied, messy kiss with frankly an unnecessary amount of tongue.

"You're amazing," Eggsy's insisting any time he takes a millisecond to breathe, "you're fucking unbelievable, are you okay? Was that alright?"

"Yes, it was alright," Harry confirms, laughing breathless and shaky against Eggsy's chin when the boy starts scattering kisses on the flushed pink skin he'd slapped.

Merlin turns off his tablet then, and the car after it's pulled up just outside the front door, and drops the chain and pendant back to its usual place beneath his clothes. The living room curtains are drawn but he can see the soft glow of lamplight through the fabric from outside, and when he unlocks the door and goes inside he can hear the soft hum of voices on the television.

Harry looks up at Merlin when he reaches the doorway, smiles that wonderful mess of a smile that seems to collapse his entire handsome face into dimples and creases. He's still naked, tanned skin gleaming gold in the light from the lamps, and his hands are still bound behind his back. Even though he's kneeling on the plushness of the rug, his knees look red and sore from the pressure of it.

"Good evening," Merlin says as casually as he can manage under the circumstances.

"Can't argue with that. Did you bring milk?"

"Shit, no. Sorry. I was distracted. I'll run out in the morning." Behind Harry, Eggsy is fast asleep on the sofa, still in most of his suit but with the jacket off and draped over the back cushions. "Worn your puppy out, I see."

"He wore himself out, poor lamb. I was an innocent bystander."

"Bystander, maybe. Innocent, never." Merlin comes over, perches on the arm of the sofa by Eggsy's feet so he can reach out and start gently playing with Harry's hair, feeling the grateful push of Harry's head against his fingers like a cat being fussed. "Did he forget to say you're allowed to get up before he fell asleep?"

"I don't mind."

"I mind. I'll have a word." His hand creeps lower, thumb tracing gentle circles over the ghostly old bruise of a bite mark one of them or possibly someone else left on Harry's shoulder a while ago, he can't remember who. "You can get up. Give your old joints a break."

"Old joints?" Harry repeats, affronted. "I'll stay here another ten minutes for that, thank you very much." But he leans his head against Merlin's thigh tiredly until Merlin's fingers are back in his hair, twisting and stroking until Harry's eyes look sated and sleepy.

"You can undo the rope, then."

Harry's free in seconds, shaking the coils of rope off his wrists and dropping it, neatly folded, onto the coffee table. "Don't tell him. He was so pleased with himself for knowing a knot I couldn't escape from."

"You spoil him. It's sickening."

" _Is_ it?" Harry asks politely. "So sickening that you're harder in your trousers than a Times cryptic crossword." He laughs when Merlin tugs his hair sharply, then turns awkwardly on his rubbed raw knees to rest his chin on Merlin's thigh. "Come to bed. It won't kill him to sleep here for a night."

"Please. You know he'll wake up complaining the moment he senses you're more than five feet away from him."

"Then I'll let him share my side. He won't put a single atom of himself onto yours, I guarantee it."

It's a fairly worthless guarantee. Somewhere between Merlin coming quick and hard in splashes over the golden muscle of Harry's back and arse and the pink flood of dawn, Eggsy wriggles his way in between them, limbs all wrapped sloth-like around Harry's bare body – except for one arm, one hand, five fingers, which end up resting on Merlin's pillow so close to his mouth that when he wakes he starts to suck them, thinking they belong to Harry.


End file.
